Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

standard IUCN criteria for Categories I–VI; (ii) areas officially
proposed by governments as protected areas; (iii)
areas recognized (before the proposed project) as protected
by traditional local communities (such as sacred groves);
and (iv) sites that maintain conditions vital for the viability
of these protected areas.
Unprotected areas of high conservation value. Critical
natural habitats include areas currently lacking status as
existing or proposed protected areas, provided that they are
recognized by authoritative sources as (i) areas with known
high suitability for biodiversity conservation or (ii) sites that
are critical for one or more rare, vulnerable, migratory, or
endangered species. Critical natural habitats typically appear
on lists prepared by conservation experts outside (and sometimes
within) the World Bank. This helps to distinguish the
genuinely critical areas from the noncritical ones. A critical
natural habitat site may appear on a list that existed before
the preparation of the project proposed for World Bank support.
Alternatively, such a list might be developed during project
preparation, as part of the environmental assessment
process (discussed below). In other words, a site could be evaluated
and classified as a critical natural habitat for the first
time during World Bank preparation of a proposed project.
Significance of forest conversion and degradation.
For the Forests Policy, “significant conversion” and “degradation”
are defined in OP 4.04, annex A, paragraph 1
(c)–(d). (OP 4.36 cross-references OP 4.04 for this purpose.)
This definition states that “significant conversion is
the elimination or severe diminution of the integrity of a
critical or other natural habitat caused by a major, longterm
change in land or water use. Significant conversion
may include, for example, land clearing; replacement of natural
vegetation (e.g., by crops or tree plantations); permanent
flooding (e.g., by a reservoir); drainage, dredging, filling,
or channelization of wetlands; or surface mining. In
both terrestrial and aquatic systems, conversion of natural
habitats can occur as the result of severe pollution.” In simple
terms, conversion is essentially the loss of an area of natural
habitat; determining the significance of a conversion
may be more complex (see below).
OP 4.04 defines degradation as the “modification of a
critical or other natural habitat that substantially reduces
the habitat’s ability to maintain viable populations of its
native species.” In this context, degradation is an environmental
safeguards concept, rather than an economic one.
Some land management or silvicultural treatments may be
regarded as improvements from an economic perspective,
but as degradation from an ecological standpoint. For
example, the systematic removal of dead or dying trees, or
species of low economic value, might be considered a management
improvement by providing more space to the trees
of higher economic value; however, it could reduce the forest’s
biodiversity and remove the habitat of birds and other
wildlife that depend upon snags. Further complexity is
involved in choosing between the different wild species that
benefit from different types of forest management interventions.
While many species of conservation or other management
interest depend upon primary or old-growth forests,
some can survive only in logged, burned, or otherwise disturbed
areas (such as young secondary forest, or grassy
clearings). Good judgment is needed in choosing the appropriate,
site-specific forest management techniques to optimize
between economic, social, and a variety of different
environmental objectives. The project team should seek to
ensure that the management objectives for a forested area
are explicit, transparent, and thoroughly discussed with the
full range of interested stakeholders.
When is the scale of the proposed conversion or degradation
of an area of forest (or other natural habitat) large
enough to qualify as significant? Neither OP. 4.36 nor 4.04
provide numerical threshold figures; there is thus some
case-by-case flexibility, provided that decisions are well-justified
from a technical and scientific standpoint. When evaluating
the significance of a proposed conversion or degradation
of forests or other natural habitats, it is important to
take into account the cumulative effects of (i) multiple subprojects
under the same project; (ii) World Bank–financed
repeater projects; and (iii) concurrent projects financed by
other sources. It is also necessary to consider the area of
each specific forest (or other natural habitat) type to be
affected, in relative terms and (for still very extensive ecosystems)
in absolute terms as well. In relative terms, an informal
rule of thumb, used at times in the World Bank, is to
consider the area of conversion or degradation to be significant
if it exceeds 1 percent of the remaining area of any specific
natural habitat type within the same country. One percent
also happens to be the threshold for requiring natural
habitat conservation offset measures in the European
Union’s Habitats Directive, Article 6(4).
In absolute terms, the substantively very similar Wildlands
OPN 11.02 that preceded OP 4.04 (and was in effect
1987–95) suggested 10,000 hectares as a threshold figure,
above which the conversion or degradation should be considered
significant, even for a very extensive ecosystem type
within the same country (where the converted or degraded
area would be well under 1 percent of the remaining area).
CHAPTER 9:APPLYING FORESTS POLICY OP 4.36 297